As I’d mentioned in my last post, I had committed to make some goodies for three friends who made a similar commitment in return, sometime within 2014.  While my “giftee” for this project didn’t receive hers in 2014, it was at least completed within that time frame. 😉

My friend Peggy has a great love of the beach, and is fortunate enough to occasionally vacation along the Carolinas’ beautiful shoreline.  This is likely what inspired the theme she chose when re-decorating her office, which she did in beautiful hues of aqua, sand, shell pink and with accessories that invoked lounging in the surf. 🙂

I’d recently come across the book of small quilts below and determined that the wee Mariners Compass (of a sort) quilt would adapt quite nicely to become the sunshine for her interior “beach.” 🙂  Unfortunately, the book has a few problems on this one quilt alone.  I am new to paper-piecing, the technique required to accurately join those tricky shapes, so when the description for the quilt directs me to Page 9 for instructions on paper-piecing, it is disconcerting that Page 9 is merely a biography of one of the authors.  I also ran into difficulty with some of the numbered templates which were not sized correctly for the areas they were to fill.  Those called for a little improvisation.  Ah yes, nothing like improvising with a technique one is a complete novice at.

But in the end it was finished, and hopefully she’ll find it cheery on gloomy days and think of sunshine hugs from her northern friend. 😉

Also got to try out Aurifl threads for the first time! Jeni Baker collection…very nice.

It went from tricky to downright hard. But after this, things got a little easier.

…until I finally had a little quilt top. I love the border fabric, which I’ve used before. Always reminds me of lovely waves.